In Britain not so many years ago, and maybe still today, you would hear that someone came down (i.e., graduated) from Oxford or Cambridge. To come down was to finish one’s studies, but the implication, at least to me, was that while at University the student was above the fray, removed from the hurly burly of life.
I am not sure those of you who are graduating next week will be coming down from Penn. While it is true that many of you have had the luxury of time to explore academic interests and pursue learning for its own sake, my sense is that for many others, to misuse a line from Wordsworth, the world is too much with you. For some time you may have had an eye on the next step. Soon you will be beginning that next chapter, whether it is a new job, or a graduate school matriculation.
Others of you have had responsibilities to families or to yourselves. You may have been working 20 hours a week or more, balancing your academic commitments with your personal obligations or financial needs. Or you may have been pursuing an entrepreneurial idea out of your dorm room or apartment, and are getting ready to introduce it to its intended audience.
To be a Penn student is to be a part of the world, and not apart from it. It is to be engaged with the community: to be a good citizen locally as well as globally. However you have spent your time here, the future is now. Go not down from Penn, but up, to meet greater challenges, and to find your way. On behalf of everyone in Career Services, congratulations and good luck wherever your path takes you.
